


Closing the Loop

by VillainVogue



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/F, F/M, I'm in denial about a certain character's death can you guess who, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-21 11:59:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11943717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VillainVogue/pseuds/VillainVogue
Summary: This is just a self-indulgent 'Missy lives' theory in fic form, because I'm not over the ending of Series 10 sorry not sorry, more relationship and character tags TBA as chapters are added





	1. The Vault

**Author's Note:**

> Largely inspired by this tumblr post: http://wordswithkittywitch.tumblr.com/post/162559851502/i-choose-to-interpret-dont-even-try-to and also by my own deep-seated desire for Michelle, and by extension Missy, to return to the show someday (and maybe smooch the Thirteenth Doctor? we can only hope~)

She'd expected to forget upon regenerating. Future-her did say she was (will be?) foggy on the details, after all. And honestly, perhaps it would have been better if that were true, because she can't properly enjoy this gorgeous new face--those _cheekbones_ \--with that horrible foreknowledge looming over her.

Missy fights against the tide, as she has always done, steals and kills and tortures and burns as she pleases, but the inevitable happens all too soon and she's on Carnathon, on her knees, crying not because she thinks he'll kill her but because she thought she had more time left, and eighty years is too short and _yes_ , all _right_ , she's _afraid_. 

So naturally she kicks and screams and destroys everything within reach for the first couple years in the Vault, because anger is easier than anything else she can think of. Anger at herself, at the Doctor, at what he's going to turn her into. Eventually her temper cools, she starts resigning herself to her fate, retreats into herself and into cold silence--just a different way of punishing the two of them for the mess they're going to make, the disaster that she can feel creeping closer with every passing second.

He takes to sitting outside the Vault door, sometimes serenading her on guitar as he does so, or telling her about his students. She starts sitting against her side of the door, at least on her good days, half-listening, half using the sound of his voice to lull her to something resembling sleep. He eventually stops expecting her to respond to his attempts at conversation, or so she thinks.

Except one day, after a prolonged silence, he asks her a question that changes everything.

"The coordinates to Gallifrey that you gave me," He says, and he can't see it, but her head jerks up in response. "Were they supposed to be wrong?"

She fumbles for a response that won't betray the fact that her timeline and his apparently don't match up, ends up with "I don't remember" and winces at the sound of her own voice, hoarse after months and months of relative disuse. He either believes the lie or doesn't care, because he continues his train of thought.

"I suppose it doesn't matter now. I did find it, eventually... I'm going back, now, just for a moment, because I've got to be there to help when they--my past regenerations--save it. I don't remember much from that day, too many paradoxes, of course, but I remember that I heard him. Me."

He pauses, as though he expects her to break her silence again for this news. She's far too busy reeling from the implication that she does, in fact, have a future beyond Floor 507, at least until he shatters those thoughts with another revelation.

"I'm not just doing it to complete the loop, you know. Because I know you're there, on Gallifrey. You were right. I saved you-- _am going_ to save you."

Missy doesn't know what to say to that, because she's certainly not going to say 'thank you', she's the _Master_ , but he doesn't wait long for the response that doesn't come. She hears him stand, listens as his footsteps fade away. 

Now she knows she'll survive. She just has to figure out _how_. But, she realizes, she's got about seventy-five years to work that out. There's time enough to humour the Doctor, indulge his fantasy of turning her good--which she knows she has to do anyway, because Floor 507 is a fixed point and she may as well help them get there instead of sitting alone just waiting. 

So Missy begins to let him in the Vault for more than just bringing her meals or new clothes, starts answering his questions and listening to his lectures on morality as best she can, asks questions of her own. Engages in 'the process'. She stops breaking every piece of furniture he attempts to install, stops trying to disassemble the egg-man whenever he arrives in the Doctor's place (mostly--he _is_ rather irritating). Occasionally they eat a meal together, or read to each other from whatever new book he brings in. They settle in to a disgustingly domestic kind of routine, and she's surprised to find that she almost enjoys it.

(And one time, when they're both more than a little tipsy, he pins her against the wall, mutters something about 'payback for St. Paul's', and snogs the living daylights out of her. She's rather looking forward to finding out what he meant by that.)

The Doctor manages to distract her with his lessons on 'goodness' and grading papers and spontaneous gifts like the piano (no more kisses, much to her dismay) until the Monks appear on the scene, and then it's six months alone with all her worst memories until he returns with _her_. The tears Missy sheds later, for the people she's killed--Bill's face is in the forefront of her mind. She doesn't quite know how she's going to face that girl again knowing that the Doctor is going to send her to her doom. Knowing that she was (will be?) the cause of the human's death.

But she'll have to figure _that_ out too, somehow. After she works out her escape plan, of course. 


	2. Floor 507

She has her fun on Floor 0, capers around the room, spouts whatever nonsense comes into her head, because she knows she won't get much of a chance to enjoy herself in the next two weeks. She'll be busy figuring out how to save herself. Missy's never been a procrastinator, but she's left this particular task rather long, confident in the knowledge that somehow things will work out--for her. Whether things will work out for the Doctor, well, she's less sure of that, and that's more than a trifle disconcerting.

_A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about_.

Still, unfortunately, true. It's hard to really be angry at him, near impossible to actually hate him. It's herself that she hates, it always has been, she just redirects that onto him because it's easier that way. Or rather, she used to do that. The Master is doing that now, and naturally winds up dragging her down with him because they have their role to play and anyways everything is sharper when it's just them, easier to focus on her own survival and not worry about Bill or the egg one or the Doctor because the Master's top priority is always himself, and by extension, herself.

Thank goodness this regeneration has such a talent for deception--lying to herself, of course, was a skill she'd practiced for centuries, but never quite this way--and thank goodness she _does_ remember a large portion of her time on the ship, albeit from a jarringly different perspective, or the two weeks spent waiting for her Doctor to recover would have been far worse. And yes, this regeneration of the Doctor is _hers_ , certainly not _his_ , and it is an important distinction because that's what tears (will tear) them apart, ultimately.

But right now, they're working as one marvelous unit, delighting in their shared brilliance and the promise of freedom encapsulated in the dematerialization circuit held between them. The Doctor didn't notice that one of his spares went missing shortly after Missy's move to the TARDIS--after all, Missy's the one that's been doing all the maintenance work recently, and from what she understands he's not done any repairs since his last regeneration and he doesn't intend to until the next.

"Is it wrong that I--?"

The pieces have been clicking into place slowly this whole time, but they're going faster now, and suddenly with that not-so-innocent question she's got the whole picture and she just wants to _laugh_ at how obvious and simple her solution is, but instead she fixes her past self with a stern look.

"Yes. Very." She says, and watches his face fall almost imperceptibly before continuing in a whisper, a slow smirk spreading across her face as she presses herself closer to him.

"But that's always been our style, hasn't it?"

She remembers having thoroughly enjoyed the kiss that follows, but current-her is a little more occupied with the laser screwdriver tucked into past-him's coat pocket than with kissing him back properly. Fortunately she also remembers him being too distracted to notice what she's about to do.

It's the work of a moment to adjust the settings to something far less lethal--and really, she wonders, why did they add that feature in the first place?--and then she breaks the kiss, still smirking up at him.

"This'll be our secret." She assures him with a laugh as she walks away, a joke that he'll only understand much later.

 

* * *

 

The Doctor holds out his hand and there's a brief, fleeting temptation to take it and abandon this plan. To hell with the time stream, to hell with stable loops and fixed points and the fabric of reality itself, she'd let the universe burn to keep that hopeful look in his eyes from flickering out right now.

But she can't, quite. There'll be time to make amends later, she reminds herself as she lets the hidden blade press into his hand. She leaves him a mental message to go with the sensation-- _We both might die today, we might not, but whatever happens, just wait for me. Please._

She knows that at some point, their paths will have to diverge again, but she's determined--today, she'll come back, she'll stand with the Doctor. Or at least she'll try. There are, in fact, a couple fuzzy spots in her memory of being the Master at this point, and she can't recall if he noticed and re-adjusted the settings on their laser screwdriver. Not that he could do much more than delay her return by a few minutes more than she'd planned, but anything could happen to the Doctor in those precious few minutes.

But what frightens her more than the gaps in her knowledge is the uncertainty of what comes after this. She lives, that much is certain to her, but what of the Doctor? If he lives, too, and waits for her as she hopes he will, what then? She can't go back in the Vault now, can't be his prisoner in the TARDIS either, now she's had her first taste of freedom in centuries, but she does want to be with him for as long as she can. Their timelines are all muddled up, though, so they'll inevitably split again.

Is there, then, a point to being 'good' in this moment, she wonders? Will it be worth it? It's awfully tempting to step inside the lift with her past self, let the time stream soak up the damage until reality starts to rip at the seams. It'd be one hell of an ending for them--and a _real_ one too, not this false conclusion they've been (are being) forced into.

But she's awfully curious, too, about what awaits her (and destroying the fabric of space-time would mean missing another chance to kiss and be kissed by the Doctor), so in goes the knife, and zap goes the screwdriver, and down goes the Mistress. She laughs with the Master, not at the irony of their 'perfect ending', but because she's _won_. In that moment, it all feels like one big practical joke on her past self.

The punchline, however, is this: Missy wakes up from her self-induced stasis to smoke and ash and the Doctor lying unconscious in the middle of it all. But she doesn't get there fast enough, because Bill and the puddle-girl are already whisking him away as soon as she spots them. It's a small comfort to know that Bill's back to herself, a slightly larger comfort to know that the Doctor didn't have a choice when he left her this time. He ought to be back for her as soon as he wakes up (and regenerates, because he really needs to by this point, he's not as resilient as he thinks, certainly not as resilient as she is).

Back any minute, she thinks. She did tell him to wait for her, after all, though it occurs to her after the first fifteen minutes of pacing about that she didn't make sure he'd actually _listened._  

Another frustrating fifteen minutes tick by before she gives up, fairly certain she's been left for dead and knowing that more Cybermen will eventually try to come through. She starts picking through the rubble of the crashed shuttle and the blown-up Cybermen for anything still in working order, and manages to put something useful together. It's a single-use transporter--space only, not time, but it'll do for a start. She only needs to go further down the ship, anyway (using the lift was out, she has to catch the Cybermen waiting down there by surprise if she's going to get out alive, which she _is_ ).

Once she's back at the bottom floor, it's the work of a moment to locate another shuttle, then a frantic sprint to where it's located (and oh, blowing up the occasional Cyberman along the way is really very cathartic, given the day she's had), and once she's in, she uses it to punch a hole in the side of the ship and speed to the nearest inhabitable planet to steal herself a better vehicle.

She doesn't even think about what the consequences of the destruction she left in her wake will be for all the people still trapped on the colony ship, she realizes once it's too far behind her to see, and laughs. All that time and effort, the tears she shed, the sleepless nights she spent sick to her stomach with guilt, the dagger in the back of her last regeneration and the pretty little speech about standing with the Doctor--all of that, and she's still not turned good. Not in the way he wants, at least.

But she'd go back if _he_ had still been stuck on the ship, she thinks as she straps on her fancy new (very stolen, still slightly bloody) vortex manipulator. She'd do anything to save _him_. But without the Doctor motivating her, she can't be bothered to care. That's all the progress she made, over that almost-century in the Vault. She can (and will, and does) kill and steal and destroy and enjoy it all--perhaps a little less than before, but still.

The Doctor will be so disappointed in her once he finds out. He'll give her an earful, she's sure--but he'll have to catch her first.


End file.
